Keep visiting us here on KnowledgeWorx You Know as well, because we will soon be publishing a range of articles detailing how our tools are being used in different business contexts to enhance learning and encourage sharing and teamworking.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

David and I are well versed in speaking at International Conferences and networking meetings and to finish off a year of travelling where we have been to:

Harrogate, England

Glasgow, Scotland

Jo'burg, South Africa

Tallin, Estonia

Geneva, Switzerland

We are now planning our session for London, England on 10th December with ITOL, the Institute for Training and Organisational Learning where we will be talking about

"Is there life beyond ROI?"

Our introductory brief is shown below:

"You’ve read all the books and articles about ROI, attended countless conference sessions, talked with “expert” consultants and even tried to implement your own framework – but with minimal results. You know all there is to know about Kirkpatrick, Philips and Fitz-ens – but still no added-value. You’ve studied the formulae associated with ROI and have the structure in place to capture the necessary data – but where’s the improvement? You’ve got scorecards and dashboards coming out of your ears – but what’s the benefit? With so many people shouting the praises of training ROI, where did you go wrong? This interactive, participative session will seek to ask some difficult questions, and maybe burst some precious balloons! "

To reserve a place at this exciting conference go to ITOL websiteand download the whole programme here (we are in stream #3).

Sunday, October 07, 2007

KWorx is changing - just a little!

Since May this year, David and I, have been reviewing the feedback we have received from those who have been using our Situational Knowledge Profiler in a variety of different work contexts. We will be sharing this feedback and new ways to use this over the next few months and hope to bring you some exciting new developments and ideas to enhance Knowledge Sharing and Development. Much of what we are researching and producing builds upon the exciting and emerging fields of:

HBDI brain dominance methodologies (Herrmann)

Creativity and Innovation Management concepts

Complexity, Chaos and Sensemaking theories (Dave Snowden)

Narrative capture & Storytelling (Steve Denning)

These sit very well with the philosophy of SKP which is all about Attitudinal Development.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

KnowledgeWorx is in the middle of a series of exciting speaking contracts in Glasgow (May 07), Estonia (June 07) and South Africa (June 07).

Here is the latest blog entry sent from David Simmonds in Johannasburg, SA, who is talking about Learning and Work: Developing the Capital Model

"I have jointly developed a new model to represent the DNA of organisational effectiveness by aligning third-generation Knowledge Management (KM) with deutero-learning. Subsequently, the validity of the model was tested in a global healthcare organisation with more than seven million customers worldwide. CAPITAL - a new analytical framework - was developed to explore the interaction between third-generation KM and deutero-learning. A questionnaire of 70 items was produced and then administered to 138 knowledge workers on three continents to ascertain their capabilities against the seven parameters of the model. Results were displayed on a ‘radar’ graphical representation, and were triangulated against five semi-structured verbatim interviews, using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques. The data set has received only initial interrogation but preliminary findings indicate that the organisation has strengths in certain areas of first- second- and third-generation KM, and at each of the three levels of organisational learning. Recommendations were made to provide the organisation with strategies to develop further its strategic effectiveness.

As a career specialist involved in the area of learning at work, I have developed a unique breadth of experience and understanding of helping people to fulfil their potential. I am passionate about excellence and want to see quality developments in all areas of working life. As an expert in the area of evaluation, I value highly the importance of reviews and assessment to continuous improvement. My desire is to engender a culture of lifelong learning in the workplace, where training and development are seen as instrumental to the achievement of an organisation’s strategic plans. This conference here in SA, will hopefully enable an exciting discussion around these key themes."

Sunday, May 06, 2007

We have been quietly working away to complete the final stages of our soon-to-be-released (June 2007) Situational Knowledge Profiler a unique online tool produced to identify and map the innate way people utilise their knowledge; skills; attitudes and aptitudes at work and in social settings.

Our next few posts over the coming months are designed to give you an outline of its conceptual infrastructure and its potential for enhancing individual and organisational learning, knowledge sharing and networking.

This new and exciting tool is based upon the principles of cognitive mapping.

E.C Tolman(1948) is generally credited with the introduction of the term 'cognitive map'. Here, 'cognition' can be used to refer to the mental models, or belief systems, that people use to perceive, contextualize, simplify, and make sense of otherwise complex problems. Cognitive maps have been studied in various fields of science, such as psychology, archaeology, planning, geography and management. As a consequence, these mental models are often referred to, variously, as cognitive maps, scripts, schemata, and frames of reference.

Put more simply, cognitive maps are a way we use to structure and store spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, and enhance recall and learning of information.

Anther definition of cognitive mapping comes from Downs and Stea who describe it as:

"..as a process composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual acquires, codes, stores, recalls, and decodes information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday spatial environment."

Concept mapping is a type of cognitive map, in this sense, representing a structured process, focused on a topic or construct of interest, involving input from one or more participants, that produces an interpretable pictorial view (concept map) of their ideas and concepts and how these are interrelated. Source: www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/conmap.htm

Basically, a concept map is a graphical representation of the structure of knowledge. In the 1960s, Joseph D. Novak (1993) at Cornell University began to study the concept mapping technique. His work was based on the theories of David Ausubel (1968), who stressed the importance of prior knowledge in being able to learn about new concepts. Novak concluded that:

"Meaningful learning involves the assimilation of new concepts and propositions into existing cognitive structures."

A concept map is a graphical representation where nodes (points or vertices) represent concepts, and links (arcs or lines) represent the relationships between concepts. The concepts, and sometimes the links, are labelled on the concept map. The links between the concepts can be one-way, two-way, or non-directional. The concepts and the links may be categorized, and the concept map may show temporal or causal relationships between concepts.Source: http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-1/concept.htm

In Part Two next month, we look at the potential to be gained from 'seeing' a concept map of your innate knowledge.

Time is well spent if it is on self-awareness

During one such research period, we identified the following quote and realised that it was significant to us given some of what we had recently observed in our many interactions and networks.

"Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person,to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way -this is not easy."Aristotle, The Nicomachean EthicsWe then discovered that many different development coaches proceed to offer you ideas as to how you can address the issues contained in the above quotation, things like:

Keep an Open Mind

Be Flexible

Don't be Afraid to Make Mistakes

There is Always More to Learn

Define Your Own Success

Life is for Living

Enjoy the Journey

Remember We Each Shape our Own Destiny

Know When to Give and When to Take

Keep a Positive Attitude

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there

To achieve even half of the things on the list involves a great deal of soul searching, or maybe even someone to help you with that vital first stage - self-awareness

This is great as a starting place, however it is not the solution it itself. From here will be practical steps to lead you to a place where you are happy with your behaviour and resulting actions and they produce what you set out to achieve.

While she is staying within the UK, David is travelling further afield to Johannesburg to deliver a conference presentation at the 15th Annual Conference of Learning At Work, his subject is "Developing the C.A.P.I.T.A.L model"

We will feature pictures, reports and video footage of our time at these events here on the blog.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

You can choose whether to share this insight, or just hit delete. The reactions, as cited on the discussion forum where it was found were mixed with some stating that this is an “..example of overgeneralization leading to an unwarranted negative view on life.”

Sunday, June 18, 2006

KWorx are off to Italy!

David, on behalf of KnowledgeWorx, is off on his travels once again and this time it is to Tuscany in Italy on 4th July, in advance of this exciting trip he writes:

"I will be presenting, with a colleague, a very exciting paper on a new and unique area of interest to a great many people. For the very first time, we have developed a completely innovative theoretical model to align third-generation KM with deutero-learning! And ... we also created a distinctive tool with which to assess the practical links between learning and KM. And ...we have already tested the model and the tool empirically across three continents at a global organisation. Not only were the model and tool validated, but also the corporation has received some pioneering recommendations concerning the development of its knowledge workers."

If you want to know more about the model, or the tool, then please get in touch here you can also go to our website for infomation about our other events and publications

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Prague was beautiful and the learning sublime!

The E.C.L.O. conference in Prague was once again a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge and experiences with an eager audience. These events each year prove how effective networking can really be achieved, especially when you consider that E.C.L.O. is in its 13th year and still going strong as the oldest and longest surviving Community of Learning.

Here am I with one of the Innovation Award nominees, Veda Suraj (Infosys, India), in fact she and her colleague Bharathi Rao (not in picture) picked up the Practitioner Award Merit of Distinction. There were three Awards in all, see below the winners of each category.

KnowledgeWorx was proud this year to not only be part of the Conference organising committee but also establishing for the first time this year a Knowledge Speakers Café - which was a great hit, highly useful and something KnowledgeWorx will be running again at future conferences.

Watch out for information about next years' event either on this blog or at the main E.C.L.O.site.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Our KWorx-Spaces event in Prague in 2006!

David and I are delighted to be invited (for the third year running) to present at the forthcoming E.C.L.O (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) 13th International Conference on May 22 and 23, 2006 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic.

Facilitating the capacity to change: Corporate Universities and other innovative tools

KnowledgeWorx is providing, during the two days of the conference, a series of Knowledge Café's and a KWorx-Spaces event.

Book your places early as this promises to be an outstanding conference from the now longest serving Community of Learning in Europe, just contact Brigitte Jack at or go to their website on www.eclo.org for a programme outline and booking details.

Monday, February 27, 2006

How they named companies - fact or fiction?

(...and does it really matter if it is a good story?)

In undertaking some research into Corporate Learning Academies and Corporate Universities http://www.ecuanet.info/ I found some interesting material about how companies were named and what their names actually mean, take a look below..btw it is quite a long list!

ABN AMRO — In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands). In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABNand Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.

Acccenture — Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norways part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Adidas — from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Adobe — came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .

AltaVista — Spanish for "high view".

Amazon.com — Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)

Apple — for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.

Blaupunkt — Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

Cadillac — Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.

Canon — Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

Cisco — short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co" -- Computer Information Services was the department at Stanford University that the founders worked in.

Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavouring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.

Colgate-Palmolive — formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.

Compaq — from "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.

Daewoo — the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.

Dell — named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.

DHL — the company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company's moniker.

eBay — Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " EchoBay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Epson — Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"

Fanta — was originally invented by Max Keith in Germany in 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from by products of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.

Google — the name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

HP — Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Hitachi — old place name, literally "sunrise"

Hotmail — Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" — the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)Hyundai — connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.

IBM — named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.

ICL — abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK's largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.

IKON — copier company name derived from I Know One Name.

Intel — Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise" -- not a good choice for an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else. Then, using initial syllables from INTegrated ELectronics, Noyce and Moore came up with Intel. To avoid potential conflicts with other companies of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)

Kodak — Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman . The letter "K" was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

Konica — it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

Lotus Software — Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Lycos — from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders

Mazda Motor — from the company's first president, Jujiro Matsuda . In Japanese, no syllables are ever stressed and some inner syllables are virtually skipped. Thus, Matsuda is pronounced "Matsda". To make the name fly better outside of Japan, the spelling was changed to Mazda.

McDonald's — from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald 's restaurant in 1940.Mercedes — This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.

MGM — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.

Microsoft — coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

Mitsubishi — The name Mitsubishi (??) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means water chestnut, and from here rhombus, which is reflected in the company's logo.

Motorola — Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the " ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name

Mozilla Foundation — from the name of the web-browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen , founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.

Netscape — named by first marketing employee Greg Sands, in a panic when the University of Illinois threatened to sue the new company for its original name, Mosaic. Netscape then paid Landor $50,000 to design a logo

Nike — named for the Greek goddess of victory.

Nikon — the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

Nissan — the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".

Nokia — started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.

Nortel — The Nortel Networks name came from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.

Oracle — Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Technology Inc, to the name of the product.

Pepsi — Pepsi derives its name from (treatment of) dyspepsia, an intestinal ailment.

SAP — "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formerly "SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung" (German for "System analysis and program development"), formed by 4 ex- IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.

Shell — Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already successfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.

Siemens — founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.

Tesco — Founder Jack Cohen, who from 1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word "TESCO".

Vodafone — is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Its name is made up of VOice, DAta, TeleFONE. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on the 1 January 1985.

Xerox — The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.

Yahoo — a "backronym" for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos.

KnowledgeWorx likes to bring you new and interesting information to brighten your working day!

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The E in learning is growing!

With so many technological advances these days, it is still surprising that some 'traditional trainers' fail to use this medium to support and underpin their learning programmes.

Of course the financial outlay for sophisticated CBT programmes, Internet-based learning, in-house Content Managment System and Learning Management System (CMS & LMS) can be a factor.

There are however, many FREE options to try before committing to such major expenditure so that organisations can find out what eLearning and bLearning has to contribute to learning per se.

Options like Blogging, discussion forums, online networking and Online-Open Space Technology (OST) - even the humble eMail has a part to play in enabling learning to take place in a variety of ways, and not just in the classroom.

bLearning (blended learning) is a term fast becoming much maligned as 'just another fad', yet looking beyond this tag, there is a wealth of opportunity to make learning (and training and the acquisition of information that is then processed into knowledge) interesting and exciting.

Universities run courses in eTutoring and online spaces are used in many company intranets, so whether we like it or not, the E in learning is growing (so is the A by the way) and those responsible for undertaking training and learning within organisations need to learn how to use it to its full potential.

At KnowledgeWorx we have been developing our own B.A.D.M.I.C.E. approach to learning and development. We run this session as an open Klinix, targeted at those responsible for training others to learn how to apply a wide range of learning methodologies in their workplace and help them to conduct blended learning capability assessments to support this exciting approach to Knowledge Creation and Sharing.

Please note that we have taken certain action to prevent just anyone from posting comments on this weblog. This goes against our better judgement but is due to various parties abusing this system and flooding it with unwanted and highly unsuitable material. If you would like to post a comment, then please send us an e-mail to blog@kworx.comand we will post this on your behalf.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The Manchester Experience

I have been away from business for a few weeks and only now can write about my Manchester/Russian experience..

The conference itself was great and so was the atmosphere, I had an awe inspiring time speaking, mingling, dancing and drinking with nearly 200 enthusiastic participants.

The subject area I was speaking about was People and Change and the participants were from Russia, Mongolia and the New Independent State [NIS] like Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. All of them were on an EU-funded Management Training Programme and this was their end-of-programme - the Europa Seminar at Manchester University.

Here was a group of people who were not only motivated by this programme but firmly intent on doing something with what they had learned back in their own countries to affect much needed change. In talking to them further [over a few vodka's as you do], it became apparent that this was not going to be easy for them to overturn many years of traditional management style and former regimes.

What was clear however, was their determination in the face of adversity. Former MTP1 alumni participant, Tatiana, proffered a shining example of someone who had achieved such major change in her home town through the development of her real estate business newspaper. She clearly inspired those on MTP3 with her words and the raptuous applause said it all.

My thanks go to all those that I met, I am afraid that I remember only a few names such as Max, Vadim, Natasha and Natasha, Iryna, Christyakova, Eugeni, Mikhail, Nelya, Elena, Evgeniy, Yulia, Lesya, Carine, Christiana, Sergey and of course Oleg [who danced me round the floor to the Beatles tribute band most of the night] and to those with whom I drank and sang Russian songs and finally played volleyball on the grass at 3am! [thank you for the present of the ball, my daughter loves it].

Hobbling back to the hotel [to do with my having broken the heel off my shoe - never play volleyball in high heels - and not from the drink or my age you understand] I carried with me some wonderful memories from a group that I hope get to realise their ambitions and dreams.

Perhaps, this then reminds us in the UK that it is good to have ambitious and far reaching dreams and strive each day to turn them into a reality. For those of you who have promised to get back in touch with me, please do, and also when you read this blog, perhaps post some comments in the box that pops up with your own memories of your trip to UK.

Some pictures that captured the themes and the feelings are posted here..

Monday, July 04, 2005

Józefa [finally] gets to adopt the 'KWorx Roving Reporter' role

Well at last I can be the 'KWorx Roving Reporter'. I am speaking to 200 Managers who are part of the TACIS EU Management Training Programme MTP 3for delegates from the Ukraine Russia, Bielorussia, Azerbaijan, Ouzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan & Mongolia. My talk will be about People and Change.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

'KWorx Roving Reporter' live from Melbourne, Australia

From a very chilly Melbourne (!), David Simmonds writes:

"The inaugural conference of the Australian Centre for research in Employment and Work (ACREW) was launched in great style by a thought-provoking keynote address by Prof. Scott Snell from Cornell University.His talk ranged across vast horizons including strategic HRM, the development of HR strategy, and HR configurations. Of particular interest to those of us working in KM, however, were his views on Organisational Learning (OL). He developed the argument that we can no longer focus simply on managing talent by exploring the human capital architecture of knowledge pools. Nor can we even restrict our attention to an examination of relational exchanges and the social capital archetypes of knowledge flows. Increasingly, we must concentrate on OL as seen in know;edge integration terms.

Scott Snell went on to juxtapose two different views of learning prevalent today. Firstly, there is the exploitative model of continuous improvement, which depends on creativity, combinations, links, and generalised trust. On the other hand, the second entrepreneurial model is built on notions of exploration and innovation, with foundations in absorption, spaces and specific trust. Too much exploration, he said, kills efficiency, and too much exploitation kills adaptation.

Afterwards, I [David] was able to discuss these models with Scott Snell further, and to explore with him the essentially cyclical nature of them both. Whereas the one view tends to favour OL, I suggested, the other reflects a preference towards the Learning Organisation (LO). He then proposed a new model, combining both of these and I suggested to Scott that an organic, dynamic, moving integration of both of these cycles might look like a - double helix!"

Could this be the DNA of the organisation of the future? We at KWorx certainly think so....

Thursday, June 09, 2005

An evening of networking and sharing

Tonight KnowledgeWorx joined David Gurteen at the University of Greenwich, London, along with a swarm of familiar faces [and some not so familiar] to participate in the dying embers of a Thursday evening Knowledge Barbeque. The event was organised by Gurteen himself as part of his Knowledge Cafe series and as the drink flowed so did the opportunity to share knowledge and enhance communication amongst a diverse group of individuals.

There was, alongside the delicious food and drink, the expectation that we would all mingle and make new connections and renew old ones, and as such KnowledgeWorx once again met Lesley, Jonathan, Clive, Shane, Linda, Mary, Hedley, Kanas, Martyn, Denis, Marc, Ian, Fifi, Harry - at least those are the names that that can be remembered at this particular time of 23.45hrs, but there were plenty more..

Matthew from Lambeth very kindly let me loose with his camera and so the obligatory incriminating shots were obtained click on this link via flickr to see the full slide show.

Business cards were exchanged, promises of contact were made and new connections were formed, with the plan that we would come to the next Gurteen Knowledge Cafe to meet again.

The value of such meetings? Considerable

The range of connections? Unlimited

The desire to repeat the process? Definitely

Maybe C U at the next one? Especially once you have viewed the photographic evidence and decided that this is a great unstructured way to do what we humans can do [but sometimes forget to do] best - use our linguistic and other interpersonal skills to meet and share our knowlege with others.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

It is so nice to be appreciated!

Having just received some wonderful and unsolicited feedback from David's recent conference in Thessaloniki, I felt it needed to be published in full here.

In a previous posting, one comment came from David St Lawrence, who really liked our blog and could see how much we enjoy our work, but wanted us to be clearer about why, so for you David and others, this is the reason..

"Dear Mr David Simmonds,

It was a real pleasure having the chance to meet you at the conference recently. For me, your presentation made the difference to the whole conference. It elevated the subject to more expanded and valuable meanings. Also I consider meeting people from the same "family of thought" as a gift from life, everytime it happens. I hope that more and more people will share similar characteristics of decency, modesty, insight, friendliness and good intention.

Lastly, I would like to return your invitation, and let you know that it will be my greatest pleasure to provide hospitality for you in Athens whenever your road leads you to our sunny country.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

'KWorx Roving Reporter' live from Thessaloniki, Greece - Day 2

David writes:

Day 2 of the conference at Thessaloniki continued to stimulate emotions and arouse interest in a wonderfully diverse range of areas of EI / EQ. Konstantinos Kafetsios and his team of research collaborators presented several sessions outlining the preliminary findings from their analysis of the rich data source collated through their project in 6 countries looking at 'Innovative methods for the assessment and training of career starters' interpersonal transferable skills', which is a Leonardo Da Vinci initiative.

In addition, Elena Antonacopoulou of the University of Liverpool, provided a most compelling account of her widely-published and highly-renowned work at the boundaries between emotion, learning and knowledge management. Amongst many memorable quotes she made during her talk, these are some of the most pertinent and relevant to our central themes we have been developing at KnowledgeWorx:

"Knowledge (and leadership) is a practice, not a product (or a role or function). We must be engaged in research. We must be willing to be surprised. CoPs are those groups that give non-judgemental support to encourage others to learn through mistakes. We need to incorporate discontinuity in the non-linear journey of lifelong learning, which is more like whitewater rafting than paddling your own canoe. Learning is SPACE! we must become thirsty for the unknown. A story is a collective enterprise. Leadership is a window to inner learning."

Elena ended by echoing the words of Sophocles:

"One must learn by doing the thing: for though you think you know it, you have no cetainty until you try it"

In my own session on "Introducing interpersonal skills in higher education" I outlined my initial thoughts that IQ, EQ, mQ and SQ must be combined to form OQ - organisational / organic intelligence.

These last few days have offered a wonderfully stimulating and valuable learning experience for all of us speakers and participants alike. Once home, KnowledgeWorx will be continuing this exciting and thought-provoking range of discussions with its own CoP on OQ - hopefully some of you reading this blog might want to join us!

Friday, June 03, 2005

'KWorx Roving Reporter' live from Thessaloniki, Greece - Day 1

From a very busy conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, David Simmonds, our regular KWorx'roving reporter' sends his most up to date reflections from Day 1 of this conference:

Over 100 people today witnessed renowned Emotional Intelligence (EQ) experts locked in debate. Richard Boyatzis, of the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western University, argued that we must be engaged in catching our dreams and engaging our passions. Using research from the field of neurpsychology, he asserted that power-stress causes a simultaneous arousal of both the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and also the para-sympthatetic nervous system (PSNS).

SNS gives rise to positive reactions, whereas PSNS produces negative responses. In our brains, the first section to be affected is that part relating to our emotions; only after that can rational thought become involved! Boyatzis drew heavily on his collaborative ventures with Daniel Goleman and other researchers at Hay-McBer to develop his model of Intentional Change. Battling in the opposite corner, Moshe Zeidner, of the University of Haifa, referred to his own work with Matthews in asserting that EQ is "Personality in action". He also preferred the early work of Salovey & Mayer who held strongly to the opinion that 'despite the flourishing research programs and broad popular interest, scientific evidence for a clearly identified construct of EQ is sparse. The science of EQ', he went on, 'is in its infancy, and many questions remain unanswered.' He concluded that 'it is unclear how EQ may best be measured'.

As you can imagine, audience participation is high! And other speakers added further to the debate by highlighting the apparent paradox between those who hold to the view that EQ is essentially intrapersonal in nature - to do with self-awareness - and those who insist EQ has an interpersonal perspective - all about managing relationships!

Watch this space! The gloves are off!

I am sending this back to the UK for inclusion in our Blog, so why not add your comments and let's continue the debate?

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Some images of KnowledgeWorx at the ECLO (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) Conference in Birmingham on 23rd and 24th May.

Here we both are are undertaking our "KWorx Swap Shop", and though it took place right at the end of the two days, at least 75% of the delegates stayed to participate - with an enormous amount of energy still in place at 17.00hrs!What a fantastic time was had by all - the key learnings along with the 'swaps and offers' from those that participated will soon feature on the ECLO website.

Each year our involvement with this exciting and friendly Community of Learning gets better and better, last year we presented at their 11th International Conference in Dublin and then joined them at the RAI, Amsterdam as part of the Internationally renowned KM Europe 2004.

We are happy to offer our continued support specifically because they are taking the concept of the Learning Organisation well and truly into the 21st Century through their knowledge-sharing across boundaries, their research and their practical applications.

Visit our special 'photo space'to get a flavour of the humour and the learning that went on this week. Sorry if the images are not so crisp and clear, one very important piece of learning for us is that we need to replace our ancient digital camera in time for next year's conference in Prague. Hopefully we might meet some of you who read this blog over there?

Saturday, May 21, 2005

David and I are preparing ourselves for two exciting days at the European Consortium for the Learning Organisation (E.C.L.O)and their 12th Annual conferenceat the Millennium Point, Birmingham, UK on 23rd & 24th May 2005.

During the conference I will bring you photos and highlights from this very special event produced by Europe's longest established Community of Learning and Practice . The event starts officially on Monday 23rd May, but a pre-conference dinner at a Curry House in Birmingham will certainly set the scene for the subject at hand - Transformation - the ultimate learning process!

Other speakers at the conference include Richard Boyatzis, whose work in the early 1980's started the competence movement.

David's paper will focus on 'Interpersonal Skills in Higher Education' and the way that this is being taught in HEI across UK. This is a fantastic opportunity for David to present links from his own career in academia and working practice from his range of experiences at KnowledgeWorx

Thursday, March 10, 2005

'KWorx Roving Reporter' writing from Singapore

David writes:

The Grand Hyatt hotel here in Singapore is magnificent. The staff here quietly get on with their work, and achieve a very high standard - which, from my experience of working in many conference centres and hotels throughout the world, is most unusual. All the delegates have been duly impressed.

From just this first day, the 16 learners have accomplished a great deal. They have blended very well, participated without question, and been open to new challenges. In addition to a great deal of new understanding, they have also received personal feedback using the Kworx Tool, on their own knowledge work contributions. Moreover, several of the participants have remarked how delightful and refreshing they have found the Masterclass, in so far as it appears to be distinctly different from many other KM conferences and seminars, which often contribute only to the areas of IT when discussing Knowledge Management issues. The delegates have enjoyed discovering much more about the human aspects of knowledge sharing, and about about the social imperatives to enabling organisational sustainability.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Well David is on his way to Singapore and is due to arrive 08.00hrs (Singapore time) on Wednesday 9th March which is 01.00hrs UK time. He starts his masterclass on Thursday 10th March and is expecting 20 participants, mainly from the public governmental sector.

David will send back details from the first day and I will post his comments here on this blog.